Deep Sea Embers

Ted Leal was wrapped in a thick blanket and sitting in the small room of the research station. Someone handed him a cup of hot tea that was still hot to the touch. He held the tea cup and raised his head to say thank you: "Thank you."

"You're welcome!" Alice responded seriously, and then began to look curiously at the "Secret Keeper" who had just been fished out of the sea. After a while, she turned to Duncan next to her and said, "Captain, Mr. Ted doesn’t seem to be in a very good mood!”

"I fell into the sea - twice!" Ted looked up at Duncan standing aside, and shivered subconsciously in the middle of the sentence - the physical cold was not a problem for a saint, he was The shiver was more like soaking in the chill of fate, "The first time I fell out of the subspace, the second time I was thrown out by a pigeon!"

He trembled again, turned his head and glared resentfully at the fat white pigeon that was pacing on the floor with its chest raised. The latter rubbed its beak on the floor, tilted its head and looked out the window with one eye. His eyes fell on Ted and he flapped his wings: "What are you looking at?"

"You must have offended Ai," Duncan's voice came, showing a calmness and calmness, "It usually doesn't throw passengers into the sea."

"Isn't it possible that a pigeon like you is cruel by nature?" Ted stared, looking quite indignant. "It was mocking me when it threw me down, and everyone here heard it..."

"That's impossible. Ai is a dove of peace." Duncan immediately waved his hand and pointed at Ai, who was walking around. "Look, it's white."

Ted was startled when he heard this, but he couldn't keep up with Duncan's rhythm - he had never heard of what the dove of peace meant...

However, Duncan was used to situations where no one could pick up on the jokes he made casually. He just waved his hand nonchalantly: "I guess you weren't very cooperative when Ai brought you here."

"...Okay, I admit it," Ted thought for a while and sighed helplessly, "But you can't blame me - I don't know you as a pigeon. Even if the flame looks familiar, a pigeon suddenly flew out. The skeletal strange bird swept me into a dark and strange space. Of course, my first reaction was to feel threatened, and it was inevitable to resist..."

Lucretia, who had never spoken next to her, suddenly said: "Then you didn't hit the pigeon, and you were thrown into the sea by the pigeon."

Ted Leal: "...can we stop talking about pigeons?"

"That makes sense." Duncan nodded and sat down on the chair next to Ted. "Then the topic of pigeons is over. Let's discuss subspace next."

"Uh..." Ted muttered in his throat, with a very strange expression on his face, but probably the continuous bizarre experiences had greatly tempered his nerves, and he soon calmed down. He took a breath and looked around.

The college staff stationed here left the room almost in a flash and closed the door - within a few seconds, only Duncan, Alice and Lucretia were left here besides him. people.

"I have told Captain Lawrence all the experiences I can recall," Ted Leal breathed a sigh of relief after all the irrelevant personnel left, and said while recalling, "The subspace is in my mind. It left a long shadow of chaos, and some memories became blurry. I can only remember those unrelated fragments, such as those silent, huge and weird 'things' I had witnessed. This part of the content You should already know..."

"Yes, Lawrence reported the situation to me, but some things must be communicated face to face to be more clear," Duncan said casually, "For example, the specific forms of the things you witnessed... What Lawrence relayed is not as good as listening to you in person..."

As he spoke, he casually pulled out a picture from the table next to him.

Those were some sketches that Duncan drew by himself after receiving the situation reported by Lawrence and before Ted Leal was brought back by Aye.

Ted Leal curiously took the paper handed over by Duncan, and his eyes widened slightly after seeing the content depicted on it.

What is drawn on the paper is not something scary and bizarre - it is just the outline of some doors and windows, some pillars with elegant and complicated lines, and some winding iron patterns.

However, the "style" and "feel" they presented were no less important to Ted Leal than witnessing those terrifying and bizarre giants in the subspace again.

He raised his head hesitantly and saw Duncan looking calmly into his eyes.

"Is this the style?" Duncan asked softly.

Ted Leal opened his mouth, then lowered his head and stared at the series of partial structures of the buildings depicted on the piece of paper. After a long time, he said in a deep voice: "...Yes, that is a huge building in the dark. , like a palace, but also like an overly complicated and huge mansion, it hangs upside down above my head. Its spire is reminiscent of those gloomy black towers in northern city-states. Its doors and windows are slender and towering, and outside each window Covered and blocked by dark matter like thorns..."

He stopped, recalled and organized for a while, and then continued: "The whole building remained silent in the darkness, like a giant beast that had been dead for many years, but at certain moments... I saw some of its windows. There will be a hazy flash inside, as if there are still people moving inside it, and then the whole building will seem to come alive..."

Duncan listened silently to Ted Leal's description, and looked solemnly at the windows, columns and decorative patterns he drew on the paper.

That was the thing in Alice Mansion - even though all Ted Leal saw was the exterior of the building, stylistically the two were clearly unified.

What Ted Leal saw was indeed the Alice Mansion.

Alice's mansion in subspace.

But Duncan clearly remembered that after Leigh Nora "took away" the "mistress' bedroom" deep in the Alice Mansion, a huge hole was left there. When he looked out of the hole, he could only see into the boundless darkness, and could not see the iconic chaotic light flow and huge solid shadow in the subspace...otherwise he should have realized that the mansion was located in the subspace.

why is that?

Is it because what Ted saw in subspace was just a "projection" of Alice's mansion? Or...the last time I looked out from the big hole inside the mansion...there was something "obstructing" my sight?

Duncan frowned and fell into deep thought. After holding it in for several minutes, Ted finally couldn't help but speak: "What is it that I saw? It seems like you are familiar with it?"

"Familiar, I go there often," Duncan nodded lightly, "But don't ask about the details - for your physical and mental health."

"...Well, that is subspace after all," Ted reacted immediately, but then the expression on his face was a little strange, "Rahem Bless, I didn't expect that I was actually discussing subspace with you. The thing... I went there and came back alive, and to this day I still think it's a little unreal."

"It's a little late for you to start feeling these things now," Duncan waved his hand, and then spoke again, "You also mentioned that the huge upside-down mansion changed before your eyes and turned into something like A structure like a giant ship?”

"Actually... I'm not sure what that thing is at all," Ted Leal hesitated, and finally chose to speak cautiously, "The experience in subspace is like traveling through layers of illusions, and my reason My cognition seems to be divided into two dimensions and operates independently. I see many things, and they often change into other...'looks' in an instant, and only part of these changes have really happened, and the other part It’s like my mind is spontaneously reorganizing the incomprehensible information.”

Duncan thought for a while and sent another piece of white paper and pencil to Ted Leal: "Whether it's an illusion or not, can you still draw the 'instant change' look of that mansion now?"

Ted Leal hesitated for a moment, then took the pen and paper: "...I'll give it a try."

The Keeper of Truth came to the table wrapped in a blanket and began to lay down at his desk to outline the hazy hallucinations he had seen in the warp.

Duncan stood aside, watching with seriousness and patience.

Under Ted Leal's brush, some messy abstract lines gradually emerge on the paper.

However, Lucretia, who was watching curiously from the side, gradually frowned: "Is this what you said...'the giant ship'?"

She only saw many randomly connected lines, as if some abstract geometric "fragments" were pieced together into a roughly long spindle-shaped structure, or some kind of asymmetrical "cylinder", and that was not what she recognized. The "ships" in them are actually very different.

But the next second, she noticed that Duncan's expression was becoming serious after seeing those "abstract patterns".

What did my father see from these strange abstract lines!

Has he seen this thing? !

Doubts suddenly appeared in Lucretia's mind, but before she could ask, Ted Leal had already put down the pencil in his hand.

"I know this thing doesn't look like a 'ship', but the moment I saw it, I thought in my mind that this should be some kind of 'ship'," Ted Leal raised his head and said to Lucretia , "I can't tell what's going on, it's like some kind of 'knowledge' is directly imprinted on my thinking, or some kind of 'revelation'..."

Duncan was still staring at the messy lines Ted had drawn on the paper. At this time, he suddenly raised his head and asked: "...Is it finished?"

Ted Leal nodded: "The painting is finished."

Duncan frowned, his expression extremely serious: "That's all? Only this part?"

Ted Leal finally realized something from Duncan's attitude. He hesitated slightly: "That's all I saw...that's the only part. What's wrong with it?"

Duncan was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly stepped forward and pointed at the pattern on the paper: "I'm not sure... but theoretically, what you drew may only be one-third of its structure!"